How was the investigation?

Like all other activities, the school system was used to register for sign-ups. The vast number of clubs on the school directory and convincing 1 paragraph descriptions of each one really helped me decide which activities I wanted depending on how much I wanted to exit my comfort zone. This allows me to pursue the CAS learning outcomes in a SMART way. From an entire past year’s worth of experiences under my belt, I decided in a reflective and balanced way that when I move to G12, I would take something that puts me extremely out of my comfort zone but at the same time being something I was passionate about, but never got the chance to do before. So I chose the yearbook club/committee. Mainly my train of thought went over to LO2 which was assessing risks and taking them because I believe that a growth mindset is extremely necessary to survive and thrive and today’s world.

How did the preparation go?

I would say that preparing for something as big and taxing as the yearbook club was simply every past IB leadership, creative or innovative event I have ever attended. To highlight one of these for clarity, we can take the example of the Group 4 Project where we had to efficiently collaborate with peers from different sciences and come up with solutions in only a limited amount of time. Combined with some past speeches I had given at my school, it gave me the final confidence and push I needed to convince myself by saying “Yes, today I will commit to a new challenge!”.

Other preparation included reviewing the past works of all the teams that came before us. Other preparation was the assignment of teams, which were assigned by the committee chair and co-chair. There were many teams, each having many students, along with teachers helping moderate and rationalise the process.

The teams were:

1. Senior Pages – MY TEAM
2. Photography
3. Design
4. Media
5. Miscellaneous

The team names themselves clearly stipulate their roles. Each team had their own Google Drive sub-folder in the main Yearbook folder in which they could keep track of their individual progress and report to the chair with solid evidence of work. This was also the main place for planning and schedules.

Complete Link (might not be accessible to everyone)

Some of the planning documents (Senior pages team):

Action

The planning and the action usually went hand-in-hand since we were such a big committee dependent on so many students submitting work on time so we had to change schedules or swap around a few things even at the last minute which really proved our resilience and adaptability to bran new challenges, this again relates to the learning outcome of collaboration.

I want to explicitly state that throughout this process we were extremely cautious of our environmental impacts and did most things online while minimising carbon emissions through transport by usually encouraging people to take the school bus or only stay back on days they can carpool with other students. Relating to LO6

LO7 of ethics was also an actual major concern since certain topics or themes or representations were not allowed on the yearbook as at the end of the day we were a school and had to maintain our dignity. Many debates ensued about certain ouns which were on thin ice or certain students who did not want to be nominated for certain superlatives because of social reasons or other concerns.

The last image shows some of our superlatives and winners for you, the reader’s amusement!

I believe we spent an exceptional amount of hours even outside normal meeting times to get this going the correct way so learning outcomes 3 and 4 have mostly been met.